03/31/2006

From Leland to Los Angeles

Reynolds writes for 'Assume the Position'

By Tom Carr

tcarr@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/Douglas Tesner
Leland resident Rebecca Reynolds is a writer for HBO's new show, "Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl."

LELAND — An HBO special that premiers this weekend will bear the mark of TV writer and Leland resident Rebecca Reynolds.

Reynolds likes to stay backstage and let Robert Wuhl, star of the special "Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl," be in the limelight. It was her longtime friendship and professional affiliation with the former star of the cable network's "Arli$$," about a sports agent, that led to her latest writing gig.

"Robert and I kind of kept up with each other," said Reynolds, who locally has helped found the Beyond the Bay Film Series and Stage Turner, a group that reads short stories in character voices, with husband Jim Carpenter.

The humorous and historical special, which debuts at 10 p.m. Saturday, takes a look at commonly held historical beliefs that are untrue, exploring how they came to be in the first place. Wuhl presents the information before New York City college-age students in a rented classroom at New York University. He does it in a professorial way, using a PowerPoint presentation.

"We wanted a college-age audience," Reynolds said. "The material works well for an adult nightclub audience, but it really works well for college-age audiences."

Wuhl tells the students that Paul Revere was just one of many riders that night who warned of the arrival of the British troops and how he became the most famous.

Promos show Wuhl describing Ulysses S. Grant as a "hero of the Civil War and one of the all-time, great American drunks." He refers to the Founding Fathers as "rich white men who didn't want to pay taxes. How things have changed."

Reynolds knows Wuhl from when she was in New York in the 1970s and '80s. She was working for The Acting Company, a touring classical theater group that counted Patti LuPone and Kevin Kline as members then. She also worked on production for the legendary live show by the late Andy Kauffman in which he took the entire audience out after the show for milk and cookies.

Wuhl was doing stand-up at clubs like "Catch a Rising Star" and "The Improv" at the time, while Reynolds was acting in comedy skits at the clubs. Eventually, both of them went to Los Angeles, where Reynolds' ability to play a Southerner — she grew up in Mayfield, Ky. — landed her on episodes of TV shows like "The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo" and "B.J. and the Bear."

"I kidnapped Loretta Lynn and forced her to hear me sing on 'Dukes of Hazzard,'" she said.

Through the years, her path would cross with Wuhl's. Then, in the mid-1990s, as Reynolds was back in Kentucky taking care of family responsibilities, Wuhl called her on a Sunday to ask if she could work on his new HBO series, "Arli$$." In Los Angeles by Wednesday, she was named a writer/producer of the show, which ran from 1996-2002.

She went to L.A. last year to pitch a project she'd been co-writing and had lunch with Wuhl. He told her about the current project and asked her to co-write it.

She accepted and moved to California for four months to work on it. Now she's back in Leland, where she has been helping her aunt Brook Byron — also an actress who had roles in two Shirley Temple movies, the movie "Auntie Mame" and "The Untouchables" TV series, among other productions. She also has planted snowdrops outside the Leland post office.

Meanwhile, she and Carpenter continue to work on the film series and Stage Turner.

She was also on the steering committee for last year's inaugural run of the Traverse City Film Festival. And she's also become a humor columnist for a new magazine out of Grand Rapids.

"I've worked in Aspen, New York, Los Angeles, Leland and Suttons Bay this year: the big five," she said.

After its initial run on Saturday, "Assume the Position" will air several more times throughout April on HBO and HBO2. The show contains adult language and content.